Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: Sacha Gervasi has been set by Summit Entertainment to adapt Headhunters, the English language adaptation of the Jo Nesbo novel.  Marianne Gray, Ole Sondberg, and Berna Levin will produce via the Yellow Bird production banner. Yellow Bird produced the Swedish adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy and is a producer of the upcoming Hollywood trilogy that begins with the David Fincher-directed The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Similarly, Headhunters was first made into a Norwegian film by director Morten Tyldum, with Yellow Bird among the producers. In the wake of the success by Larsson, the Norwegian author Nesbo’s crime thrillers have become big business. The book was published in the US by Doubleday and became a bestseller.

The novel is about a corporate headhunter steals valuable artwork from the homes of his applicants. After his latest heist goes awry, the headhunter finds himself in over his head and caught up in a murderous scheme.   Erik Feig, Summit’s President of Production, Michael Schaefer, Summit’s Senior Vice President of Acquisitions and Co-Productions, and Jeyun Choi, Summit’s Creative Executive, will oversee the project for the studio.

One of Nesbo’s other novels, The Snowman, has Martin Scorsese attached to potentially direct through Working Title.  Gervasi, who’s attached to direct Alfred Hitchcock & The Making Of Psycho for Fox Searchlight and scripted The Terminal, Henry’s Crime and directed Anvil! The Story of Anvil, is repped by CAA and Management 360.